


Signed With Blood

by superstarfinn



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Canon-Typical Violence, Captain America: The First Avenger, Gen, Letters Home, M/M, Military, except it's from Bucky's perspective, love letters kinda, that's all it is
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-12
Updated: 2015-01-11
Packaged: 2018-03-01 03:26:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2757803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superstarfinn/pseuds/superstarfinn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve told Bucky that he was taking all of the stupid with him.<br/>He was mostly right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_~~Dear~~ Steve,_

Water dripped onto the edge of the paper again, leaving it with another ruined edge. No matter where he moved, Bucky couldn't escape the rain. His socks were permanently damp, but he didn’t want to go through all the work to take off his boots and find a dry pair in his trunk. His ink was running in the constant drip of water, and he was so close to giving up, but he had promised that he would write often. At the time, he hadn't known how much rain and fog was possible in England.

_Sorry I didn't write as soon as I promised. It’s been quite the month, and not all in a good way. After Basic, we've been moved to this camp about a five hour march south. I've been here about three days now, and it hasn't stopped raining yet. I’m not sure if you can even read this, thanks to the wonderful state of the weather, but here you are, the letter I promised. This is ~~actually pretty miserable~~ much different than it looks like in the newsreels, not as glamorous as the soldier’s life is made out to be. I know you really want to come out here, but it isn’t the place for you. I’m not saying you’re weak. I’m saying that I want you safe, and there are some infantries that have it worse off than mine._

The soldier who occupied the cot next to him, Jim or John or something, sat down facing Bucky and offered a slight smile. He was about as new to this camp as Bucky was, and Bucky grinned in return. Yes, the weather was as bad as the food, but he’d made it. He was in the army now. “You’re Jack, right?” he guessed.

“Jack Palmer, yep.” The other man nodded and stretched out on his cot. “What I would give for some dry socks.” He was from New Jersey, judging by the accent, and a picture was on his bedside table--really more of a crate on its side--picturing him and a smiling girl. She was cute, probably around thirteen, had the same green eyes and pointed nose as Jack. Bucky assumed that she was his sister, though had refrained from asking about her. It was interesting to hear about the lives that all the men had left behind, but it wasn’t Bucky’s place to pry.

Bucky snorted and wiped excess water off of his letter again. “I know the feeling.”

_I know you probably tried to enlist again, even though I told you not to. Punk. Please don’t lie on the application, I don’t want to have to go AWOL to bust you out of jail. You know I’ll do it._

“Writing to a girl back home?” Jack asked, turning on his side to rifle through his pack.

Bucky looked up and wiped even more water off of the paper absentmindedly. He was beginning to wonder how much water was physically able to be in the sky at one given time, because this was getting ridiculous. “Nah. Just my buddy Steve.”

Jack nodded and produced a book from his bag, the pages wrinkled and soggy. “You think we’ll actually get something edible for dinner?”

“Is that actually possible?” Bucky feigned shock. “They can’t let the soldiers actually enjoy themselves, Palmer! Get those outlandish ideas out of your head. This is the army we’re talking about here.”

_Out of curiosity, how did it go this time? This is, what, your fifth try? You just never give up, do you?_

Across the bunker from him, another soldier, Lance, chuckled and rolled his eyes. He was English himself, leaving behind his wife before they’d even been married a year. His accent was comfortable to listen to, though Jack usually took it upon himself to make fun of it. “Careful, Barnes, they might hear you.”

Bucky grinned. “I'd like to see them do something about it.”

_You really have it better at home, where there’s actual real food and dry socks. (Seriously, if you can, send dry socks. It would make my entire military experience that much better.)_

“You do have a point.” Lance unlaced his boots and yanked them off, then stripped off his socks as well.

Jack groaned and covered his nose with the damp fabric of the sleeve of his uniform. “Lance, put those socks back on immediately.”

The smell hit Bucky as well, though he didn’t mind as much. Heaven knew he’d smelled much worse, considering how often Steve contracted the flu. It really was a miracle that the kid had survived this long, and Bucky wouldn’t hesitate to take some of the credit. So he just smiled and shook his head in fake disapproval, not contributing or detracting from the argument just yet.

_I’m still not kidding when I say that this isn’t your place. Find a pretty girl, be happy, and I’ll be back home soon. Really, all the girls are left without a man, if you think about it. Be their knight in shining armour._

Fortunately, Lance found some new socks soon enough, and the wind got rid of the smell quickly. “There’s no need for overreaction, Palmer.”

“That was downright putrid, Lance!” Jack protested, still fanning his book in front of his nose, and he looked to Bucky for support.

Bucky looked across to Lance, who had stretched out on his cot and was flipping through a notebook that Bucky had determined to be a journal. “It was pretty bad.”

_See you around. Don't get in any fights._

Who was he kidding.

“Pardon me for having good hygiene,” Lance protested.

“You’re pardoned, your Majesty,” Jack assured.

_~~Love,~~   ~~Sincerely,~~   ~~Your friend,~~ With you till the end of the line, Bucky_

Jack turned a page, glancing up as Bucky sealed the letter in an envelope. “The mail just got taken this morning. It’ll be collected on Friday again.”

“Thanks.” Bucky addressed the letter and stood, his boots squelching. “See you at dinner.”

Lance raised a hand in farewell without looking up from his journal, writing slowly in very neat handwriting so unlike Bucky’s own. “Don’t get into too much trouble, Barnes.”

“Me?” Bucky was incredulous. “You’re the one with the killer feet.”

If he’d been back home and said that to his best friend, Steve would have found a way to trip Bucky and get him a faceful of mud, and Bucky would have pretended to marvel at how Steve’s self-defense skills were coming along.

Lance, however, only rolled his eyes. “You’d better watch yourself.”

 

Dinner was just as bad as Bucky had predicted, and he couldn’t stop himself from telling Jack “I told you so” as they sat down, no matter how childish it was. Jack just sighed and picked at his food. They all knew that they had to eat if they wanted to keep their strength up, but that didn’t mean that they had to enjoy it. Bucky choked it down as quietly as he could, finding it better than nothing at all.

“You have a strong stomach,” remarked a soldier down the table from them. He was older, more experienced, Bucky quickly observed a few old scars on his face and shaved head, along with dog tags that were more aged than the ones Bucky wore himself. “I’ve seen new recruits just spew it their whole first week."

“It’s not my first week with this sorta food,” Bucky explained, shrugging. The food at Basic hadn't been much better, and Bucky had grown up with military food, thanks to the fact that his father served at the base near his home before he’d been shot to pieces.

“Lucky you.” Jack grimaced.

“You’d best stop complaining,” the older soldier advised, though his eyes gave away that this was all in good fun. “You want to be ready. We never know when Adolf’s troops are gonna come bursting in.”

Jack nodded, looking cowed once he was reminded of the real reason he was an ocean away from his sister. He took a large bite, almost gagging, and Bucky just grinned and watched him struggle before shoveling the rest of his food into his mouth at a record-breaking speed.

Jack's face held an expression of pure dismay as Bucky wiped his mouth with a handkerchief in a way that would have made Lance proud. "Cheer up--maybe the next camp will offer better cuisine," Bucky consoled, clapping his friend on the back. If he'd tried that with Steve, the poor kid would have fallen over.

It was pointless for Bucky to worry about Steve, but he really couldn't help it. Everything reminded him of something Steve had said, something that Steve had done, and there was no escaping it. He figured he was entitled to have Steve on his mind--the other guys never shut up about their respective wives and families.

"That's a wonderful thought, but even my dear mother's cooking is better than this." Jack pulled Bucky out of his thoughts as he took another reluctant bite.

 

The next morning, someone shook Bucky awake, and none too gently. He forced heavy eyelids open when a familiar voice hissed, " _Barnes, we need your help_."

Bucky groaned and turned over to see Jack, looking worried. "What time is it?" he mumbled.

Jack opened his mouth to answer, but was cut off by a retching noise down near the end of the bunker. Bucky propped himself up on one elbow, now more alert. He squinted in the dark. "Is that Thompson?"

Jack nodded. "I figured that since you didn't even seem to notice Lance's feet, you were okay with bad smells."

Bucky shrugged one shoulder. "Steve gets the flu all the time." He sat up and pulled on his boots, not bothering to lace them, then got to his feet and carefully made his way over to John Thompson's cot.

The poor man was huddled on the edge of his cot with a bucket between his knees. Bucky sat down next to him and pulled the blanket on the cot up, and set it around Thompson's shoulders before placing a hand on his back.

"Get it all out," Bucky said soothingly, before pressing a hand to John's forehead. It was cool and clammy, but at least he didn't have a fever. He looked up at Jack, who was standing well back. "Help me get him up."

Jack seemed hesitant to come within a three-foot radius. "Why?"

"Because we need to take him to a medic. Mineral water usually stays down and I don't just carry it around with me," Bucky explained, a touch impatiently, before wrapping an arm around the sick soldier's waist and hoisting him up. Jack stepped forward and helped support him on the other side, and Bucky picked up the bucket with his free hand.

Slowly, the trio made their way to the nurses' tent. Sure, Bucky could have taken care of it himself, but he didn't want to wake up the entire bunker. They wouldn't respond too kindly to that. At one point, Bucky had to hold up the bucket for John, and he thought Jack was going to lose his dinner as well. "Keep it together," he snapped when Jack pressed a hand to his mouth.

Thompson leaned heavily on Bucky, due to the fact that Jack seemed wary of catching the flu himself and had him at almost an arm's length. "Sorry about this," he rasped, his normally clear English accent rough on his throat.

"Don't worry about it. Everyone gets sick sometimes." Bucky turned his head to give a fleeting smile and then went back to focusing on not falling into the mud. It had stopped raining for the moment, but there were still deep puddles peppering the trails.

"You're Barnes, right?" John asked in that same raspy voice, apparently not the type to wait in silence.

"James Barnes, that's me." Bucky almost slipped in the mud, his heel sliding for a few inches, and proceeded to ignore all further attempts at conversation.

When they reached the bunker where the nurses slept, it took a few knocks, but eventually a nurse with brown hair all done up in rollers opened the door and stood aside to allow Bucky and Jack to drag John inside.

"Flu," Bucky explained promptly, holding the bucket up for John as he pitched forward again. The nurse nodded and directed him to an empty cot, which Thompson collapsed onto.

"Thanks," he rasped. Bucky nodded and stepped back out into the cool night air, Jack close behind.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

"Heard you helped out Thompson last night," Lance said conversationally as he sat down next to Bucky at breakfast, immediately passing off the less-appealing parts of his meal to his tablemates like a card dealer.

"Well, of course. Palmer wasn't going to handle it on his own," Bucky reasoned, with a pointed glare in Jack's direction. He was extremely tired, hadn’t been able to sleep with the smell of sickness in the bunker, and was mostly focused on staying awake at the moment. Usually, when Steve was sick, they could at least leave a window open and Bucky could keep everything relatively clean and not smelling like vomit, but no such luck here.

"What can I say? Weak stomach." Jack eyed his tray with distaste, but somehow looked relatively well-rested. Bastard.

Bucky yawned widely. "I can see that."

A few nurses began distributing letters, and Bucky straightened in his seat a little, hoping one of them would make eye contact and hand him an envelope. Steve had promised to write, after all. He hadn’t yet, but international mail had to be a little slow...right?

But the stack of envelopes ran low. A smiling blonde nurse handed Lance a letter from his wife. He smiled and opened it quickly, pulling out the paper without flourish. Bucky focused on his food, experiencing the now-familiar reminder that he really had no one but Steve, who apparently couldn't be bothered to write.

Jack had set an envelope of his own down on the table next to his plate and was giving Bucky glances of concern whenever he thought Bucky wasn't looking. It was kind of a nice gesture, not opening his letter in front of Bucky, but the latter was beyond caring. Bucky pretended not to notice the reassurance that Jack tried to give and finished the meal in uncharacteristic silence, trying not to become annoyed at how excited Lance was to hear about his family.

He choked down his food, finding that he had rather lost his appetite. When dinner hour was over, Bucky followed the rest of his group out to the field. He was glad for the distraction. Drills were just what he needed.

Jack somehow made his way to Bucky's side as they walked to the field through the thick mud. "Hey, Barnes, is everything okay--"

Bucky cut him off with an icy look, but it quickly melted into a smile. He nodded. "Everything is dandy, Sergeant." It wasn't as if he wasn't used to being abandoned. Still, this was Steve. He hadn't seen this coming.

Jack looked unconvinced, but finally left Bucky alone.

 

Several hours of crawling through mud and running until his lungs burned later, Bucky staggered into his bunker and sat down on his cot heavily, unlacing his boots but not taking them off. He gave a tired grin as Jack sat down across from him. "That was great."

Jack shook his head, still breathing a little on the heavy side. "You, Barnes, are a maniac."

Bucky feigned offense. "I am not the one who can resist opening a letter from home."

Lance plopped down next to Bucky before dragging Jack's bedside crate over in front of them and producing a deck of cards. "You didn't open that yet?" he asked, sounding vaguely impressed.

Jack unbuttoned his coat and pulled it off, patting down his many pockets before producing the envelope, which was a little crumpled and damp but otherwise intact. "I needed _something_ to get me through that whole day of drills."

Lance began shuffling the cards expertly, and Bucky quickly became mesmerized at how the cards jumped between his hands. He knew that Lance was probably just showing off, he only needed to shuffle once or twice, but he didn’t stop him. It was interesting to watch. "Anyone up for a game?"

Jack declined and ripped open his letter. Bucky's hands itched for a letter of his own, but he just let Lance deal him in. He needed something to occupy his thoughts that wasn’t Steve forgetting him.

"Who's it from?" Lance asked, looking through his hand critically.

Jack was smiling. His smile really suited him, erased some premature wrinkles from his face. "My sister, Emily. She asks if any of you are handsome."

Bucky didn't hesitate to look up at him and smirk, even though his distraction allowed Lance to take a big step in the direction of victory. "I am. Tell her Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes sends a kiss."

Jack laughed out loud. "She's _thirteen_ , Barnes."

"By the time I get home, she'll be older." Bucky shrugged and turned his attention back to the game, giving a cry of indignation when he saw what Lance had played.

The Englishman gave no sign of remorse. "Your move."

Bucky hesitantly set down the cards he hoped were correct.

Jack read over the letter eagerly, stopping at the top of the second page. "Any eligible men at home for Emily?"

"Steve Rogers. Brooklyn. Upstanding fellow," Bucky responded on reflex, realizing too late that Lance had already won the game.

Lance grinned and slapped down the winning hand. "You're rubbish at this, Barnes."

Bucky pouted and set down his cards. "I was distracted."

"That's not an excuse." Lance picked up all the cards and began shuffling again.

 

"Ten minutes to lights out," Jack reminded Bucky, who nodded his thanks and wrote even faster than he had been previously. His handwriting had disintegrated into a hurried scrawl, but this was his last chance to get the letter done.

_You haven't already forgotten about your buddy overseas, have you? It's only been about a month and a half. I like to think of myself as pretty unforgettable, but I guess life happens._

He'd gone another week without a letter, and Lance had noticed, or Jack had told him at least. Either way, he’d found out, and Bucky hated being pitied. He didn't need a letter to be happy, and if Lance gave him another concerned look he was going to throw up as much as John Thompson had. He was totally fine without any word from home. He was a grown man and everything.

_Is everything okay? Are you safe? Healthy? You can't leave me hanging like this. ~~I'm really worried~~ I feel pretty out of the loop all the way over here across the pond._

Except that he _wasn’t_ okay without word from home. He felt cut off, excluded even. Alone.

_We're finally leaving camp for our first battle. Crazy, huh? ~~I'm a little nervous~~ It sounds really exciting. We leave tomorrow morning, I get to ride a boat across the English Channel and everything. Don't let that fool you, there are plenty of soldiers, including my buddy Jack, who get really sick. Can't wait. It’ll be great._

He glanced over at the page he'd written, and heard Jack give the two-minute warning. Fantastic.

_Please write as soon as you get the chance. I ~~love~~ miss you._

"You're going to have to run really fast to get that in the mailbox," Lance called, surprising Bucky out of his momentary confusion. He really needed to stop himself from thinking about Steve like he did. Someone was bound to notice, and then where would he be?

Bucky scribbled his _With you till the end of the line_ onto the bottom of the page, and he wasn't sure if his signature was even legible, but he folded the paper up anyway and Jack handed him an envelope to shove it into.

It was already addressed. He gave Jack a grateful look as he pulled the laces tight on his boots and ran as fast as he could, not bothering to ask how his friend gotten hold of his home address. He’d been writing letters almost compulsively, as he wasn’t really one for reading and it had been established that he was never going to beat Lance at cards, ever.

Mud squished under his feet. He turned a few corners before bursting into the mail tent. The woman sitting at the mail station smiled at him before hiding a yawn behind her hand.

"Don't get caught out of bed," she said as Bucky handed her the letter.

"It will have been worth it," he said, before turning and sprinting back to his bunker. The lights-out bell sounded as he slipped through the door. Jack gave him a thumbs-up and a grin, and Bucky felt a little less lonely.

 

Bucky lay awake on his cot for a ridiculously long time, almost completely still and listening to the other men sleeping around him. He was exhausted, but his stomach wouldn't unclench and it was keeping him almost painfully aware of his surroundings. Stress and anticipation had always been a problem for him, keeping him up before exams in school and when Steve was sick or when he hadn’t found a way to pay their rent for the month. What he felt now was worse. He'd never been in battle before, and he didn't know what to expect. This could be his last night alive.

He’d always wanted his last night to be at home.

Next to him, on the side that wasn't Jack's, the soldier turned over and breathed a shuddery breath. Bucky opened his eyes and turned his head. "You alright there?" he whispered as quietly as he could. His voice sounded rougher than normal, so he cleared his throat.

There was a moment of silence, and then the soldier said back, "Not really," in this terribly shaken voice.

"What's troublin' you?" Bucky propped himself up on one elbow, knowing that he was having a lot of trust put into him. Just admitting that there was something wrong took a lot of courage. He really already knew the answer--he didn’t think any of the people he’d met in the army so far really were interested in bloodshed and murder--but it helped to talk about it. Steve had tried this on him countless times, though Bucky had become much harder to crack as time went on.

"We're going into an entire country controlled by Nazis, doesn't that ring any warning bells?" The other man laughed hollowly.

"It does. If it's any consolation, we're only taking on the north bit," Bucky reasoned, and extended a hand. He didn't even think about it, but the other soldier hesitated before taking the hand tightly. "I'm Bucky Barnes." The other man's hand was cool to the touch. "And you are?"

"Ryan Rogers."

Bucky smiled in the dark. "That's a fine last name. Got anyone at home, Ryan?"

Ryan's death grip on Bucky's hand slowly lessened. "Just my ma and girlfriend Nancy."

"Nancy. She sounds lovely. Where are you from?" Bucky slowly laid back down, free hand pressed to his stomach.

"New York." Rogers sounded proud of the fact.

"You want to get back there?"

"When I'm done serving, s'pose I do." Ryan's voice had evened out, and Bucky could hear him breathe slower, and Bucky could sense that he was going to have to share his own story. It helped, for some reason, to listen to someone else, so Bucky had already resigned himself when Ryan asked, "What about you?"

"Brooklyn. My name's actually James Buchanan Barnes, and ain't that a mouthful. I have a friend, Steve, declared unfit for duty and back at home. He's all I have. Tiny little guy." He was rambling, his voice a gravelly-sounding whisper, for Ryan's sake. "The kind of guy who doesn't walk away from a fight. Hates bullies. Gets sick all the time. Asthmatic. But really smart. Better man than you and I together. That's who I'm fighting for."

Bucky heard the smile in Ryan's voice as he said the words Bucky had been avoiding for years. "You love him."

"I love him," Bucky finally admitted in a voice even quieter than the whisper he'd been using, and a weight was lifted off of his chest.

"Nancy's got just as much spunk. Blue eyes. Freckles. Punches whoever she wants. Gonna ask her to marry me someday." Ryan yawned, and was silent for a minute before speaking up again. 

"Get some sleep." Bucky squeezed Ryan's hand and closed his own eyes, the knot in his stomach slowly lessening.

Later, the grip on his hand loosened, and Bucky carefully dropped Ryan's hand, wondering how much the latter would remember the next morning.

It was easier to fall asleep after that. Bucky curled up as tight as he could on the narrow cot and dreamed of Brooklyn.   

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

There was a moment of complete silence, and Bucky's hands were shaking as he curled his finger around the trigger of his gun. He breathed out into the cold fall air and saw his breath in white in front of him. Rolling his shoulders to relieve tension, he crept forward and peeked around the corner of a shop with its windows boarded up.

The moment was shattered as someone screamed, "Fire!" and everything erupted into noise. Guns firing, men yelling. Bucky aimed, pulled the trigger, and ducked back into the alleyway as people ran past him.

The whole boat ride had been deceptively calm. The sun even showed its face for a moment before the sky went back to grey. Jack hadn't even gotten as sick as he thought he was going to be.

And now they were here. A bullet whistled by and struck the wall across from Bucky in the alleyway, cracking brick. He was frozen in place. One of those could go _through_ him. He wasn't the only person hesitating either, there were other men still next to him.

"Grenade!" someone yelled as something skittered across the cobbled ground and slowed to a stop right in front of him. It was undoubtedly what had been forewarned of, and that was all Bucky needed to be jarred into action. He dove out of the space between the buildings, rolling when he hit the ground and stopping behind an old rusted car as the grenade detonated and sent stone and dirt and metal raining down after him. He felt his uniform rip, and he'd probably scraped his elbow and shoulder, but he had worse concerns than that at the moment.

He heard another explosion, and the car rocked a little against his back. Bucky was terrified, there was no other way to put it, but he knew he couldn't just cower and hope the battle would end soon. So he took a deep breath, turned, and used the hood of the car to block his body while he steadied his gun. A bullet ricocheted off his helmet, and he was stunned for only a moment before he pulled the trigger. He saw, rather than heard, a man with a Nazi uniform call out and fall.

There was suddenly someone next to him, and he was talking, but Bucky couldn't hear him. The grenade had been plenty loud, and now all he heard was a loud ringing in his ears. He read the commander’s lips as best he could, and saw the word _sniper_ , before the other man pointed to the building that had been partially broken by the grenade, and Bucky figured out what the man was trying to say. With a nod, Bucky steadied himself and ran. He sprinted from the car to the blown-out alleyway, trying not to notice the bodies of the victims of the grenade. They'd been following _him_.  

He almost tripped up the metal stairs of the fire escape, he was so high on adrenaline. It was only a few sets of stairs, and then he emerged onto the roof, still breathing smoky air.

Bucky bent over as he walked, getting to the edge of the roof and lying on his stomach to reduce how much of a target he was. His gun was still cool against his cheek as he aimed, aimed, pulled the trigger, and hit his first target.

It was less stressful up here, though Bucky knew he was only up on the roof because he would've been dead in minutes on the ground. He took his shots carefully, not wanting to waste ammunition. His ribs and back became sore from his position on the flat rooftop, and his elbow and shoulder stung from where he'd collided with the pavement earlier, but he didn't dare move. Pointedly not looking at his fellow soldiers, Bucky carefully picked off Germans for at least half an hour, becoming almost detached from the process, occasionally feeling a bullet glance off of his helmet.

Until a fallen soldier's jacket ripped, and papers tumbled out, along with something that Bucky finally determined to be a photograph. The sight hit him like a sack of bricks, and his finger faltered on the trigger. He was killing _people_ , people with actual lives and homes and families and beliefs and hobbies and even favorite foods. Bucky tried to force the memory of the picture on Jack's bedside crate, Jack and a grinning Emily, out of his mind.

He was just a soldier. He was enlisted to beat the Nazis. His job wasn’t to mourn the enemy. Any Nazi alive meant more people out to kill people like Bucky's mother, people who wanted nothing more than to exist and practice their religion and live normal lives.

He pushed through these thoughts and aimed again, hitting another adversary in the shoulder. As the German fell, Bucky wondered if the man had had an Emily of his own.

Maybe it was luck, but Bucky was soon distracted from thinking too much about what he was doing. The Nazis weren't stupid by any extent of imagination, however they were depicted in the cartoons back home. Bucky saw a few of them point up at him, and a squad quickly grouped up. They were out of Bucky's range, and moved quickly. By the time they were close enough for Bucky to shoot them, they'd come too close to the buildings for him to get a good aim. They were clearly coming straight for him. There were at least five of them, and Bucky could only hope that they'd get hit on their way over.

He crawled backwards from the edge of the roof and reloaded his gun before getting to his feet and walking in a half-crouch to the top of the fire escape. His ribs protested, but he was too focused to care much.

And then the group rounded the corner of Bucky's building. At least, what was left of the group rounded the corner. Only two remained, one with a gun and the other looking much taller and stronger than Bucky was. They spotted Bucky about three seconds after he caught sight of them, which was enough for him to take aim and hit the shorter one, who fell on top of his gun.

The taller one ducked under the fire escape, out of Bucky's range, and through the ringing in his ears Bucky could hear the sound of metal scraping, as if there had been a few garbage bins left abandoned. Anxiously, Bucky stepped back out onto the roof.

Soon, he heard heavy footsteps on the metal steps. " _He's unarmed_ ," Bucky reassured himself in a mumble, like a prayer. His mother had been Jewish, but his father hadn’t allowed Bucky to go to synagogue, so he’d never prayed in his life. Now was as good a time to start as ever. " _He's just like any other bully back in Brooklyn_." His voice managed to break on his hometown's name, and the footsteps only got louder as they neared. "Steve _wouldn't walk away from this_."

Trembling hands cocked the gun on reflex, and Bucky set his jaw as the enemy soldier reached the top of the stairs. His finger flexed on the trigger, but he saw too late that the soldier's moment under the fire escape hadn't gone unrewarded as he held up a circular metal trash bin lid to block the bullet. Before Bucky could fire again, his gun was knocked out of his hand and across the roof.

Some very colorful words ran through his head, and he frantically scrambled backwards, getting to his feet to find the German at least four inches taller than him and much wider. Bucky ducked a swing at his head, turned, and kicked the shield out of the man's hand.

He realized that he shouldn't have focused on the shield when a fist slammed into his jaw. Bucky staggered sideways but ducked a second blow, driving a fist into the enemy's stomach and pushing him backward.

Neither of them had noticed how close they were to the edge until the man grabbed Bucky's arm before he could pull back and he found them both teetering on the brink of falling. Bucky couldn't wrench his arm free, and was dragged forward until he knocked into the German and pushed him off-balance.

Bucky thought for a split second that he was going to fall off the roof, but the man looked unfazed, and opened his mouth to speak in a thick accent. " _Heil_ HYDRA!" he hissed vehemently, before slamming his head into Bucky's and throwing both of their weight backwards.

Bucky was increasingly grateful for his helmet, and finally ripped his arm out of the man's grip as the latter fell backwards, clutching at air as he disappeared from view. Bucky heard all too well the dull crunching noise of his opponent hitting the ground.

His head ached, but he trudged across the roof and retrieved his gun, taking up post at the edge of the roof again, and it was there that Bucky finally felt some semblance of hope. The line of defense had backed up dramatically, and Bucky was almost completely left behind. As he watched, the far end of the Nazi force was turning and _leaving_. They'd won.

Bucky cheered. He didn't know where he summoned the energy from, but he cheered along with the rest of his people as they pushed the Nazis back.  

 

He was in good spirits until he stomped down the fire escape and saw the sheer number of bodies on the ground. Some German, some American, some British, some Canadian. It was almost indistinguishable now. They were all dead, no matter where they came from.

Bucky had to walk several blocks through the bodies, and tried not to look at faces. His feet crunched broken glass and splintered wood, and the buildings on either side of him had definitely seen better days. Other soldiers were milling around with the opposite goal as him, examining faces and looking for friends. Bucky had to tear his eyes away from a soldier propping up a fallen man with blood still seeping through the fabric of his coat. He didn’t need to see any more death today.

"Barnes!" called someone with a distinguished English accent that sounded very familiar.

Bucky immediately stopped and turned, but saw no one. "Lance?"

"In the alleyway." The voice echoed and sounded strained, and Bucky ran to the source as fast as he could.

Lance looked up as Bucky approached, and somehow managed a smile. His right leg looked burned pretty badly, the fabric torn away from the knee and thigh, probably caused by a grenade detonated from a short distance away. "You're a sight for sore eyes."

"And you're a sight to make eyes sore," Bucky shot back, stepping over bodies unceremoniously to reach his friend.

Lance actually got out a laugh at that, dragging himself upwards with impressive strength and balancing on his one good leg. The wound looked progressively worse as Bucky moved nearer, and he hoped it wasn’t as serious as it seemed, for Lance’s sake and for his own. "Could use some help."

Bucky offered his good arm and helped steady Lance. "Can you at least limp? Not in the mood for carrying you, princess."

Lance gave a small gasp of pain and got an arm around Bucky's shoulders to keep himself upright. "I can do it."

"Good man." Bucky stepped slowly, maneuvering the routes easiest for three legs. They were a block away from where their soldiers were congregating when he asked, "Do you know what Hydra is?"

Lance sucked in a breath as he stumbled over the hubcap of a car, then answered, "Well, there's a creature called the hydra in Greek mythology. When Hercules cut off its head, two more grew--Aaah, ow--two more grew back."

Bucky furrowed his eyebrows and steered clear of a still-smoking charred car. That didn't make any sense. "Any connections with Nazis that you know of?"

"They probably smelled pretty bad." Lance answered promptly, and both men chuckled dryly. "Where'd you hear about a hydra?"

Bucky shook his head, confused. Maybe the Nazi had hailed Hitler, and Bucky’s ears hadn’t recovered from the grenade fully yet. That was probably the most reasonable explanation. "Weird story. Maybe later."

The two reached a hastily erected tent with a red cross painted on the side, and Bucky pushed the flap open. He helped Lance sit down on one of the few unoccupied mats, and then was ushered to leave by a flustered nurse who had many other patients to tend to and no space to do so. Bucky left the tent obediently, starting the walk to the camp set up over the hill, hopefully untouched by the battle. It was where they'd gone over the plans before the battle, and where Bucky hoped to get some sleep and maybe ice for his jaw and a bandage for his shoulder. And where he hoped to find Jack and Thompson and Ryan Rogers safe and sound. The alternative was too painful to think about, so Bucky focused instead on not collapsing. It was harder than he expected it to be.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

Bucky wandered the camp, a little confused, keeping an eye out for the men he knew. There were several tents full of soldiers who were already asleep, but none of them looked familiar. He was tempted to give up and wait until morning, because he didn’t want to snoop around tents or anything. He could track down some paper and a pencil to write Steve another letter instead, because even if Steve had given up on him, Bucky was going to bother him to the grave. Beyond the grave, possibly. Bucky prided himself on being extremely obnoxious when he had to be.

"Barnes?" someone asked tentatively from behind him, unsure. Bucky spent a few seconds  wishing that people would just stop calling his name from behind, because his head ached from where it had been punched and hit against concrete, and he didn't completely trust his ability to turn around at this point. Luckily, he didn't have to, because whoever it was spun him around.

"You still with us, Barnes?" Jack asked with his big, goofy grin on his face. Bucky's face melted into a small smile as well. He pulled Jack into a tight hug, mostly because he was so glad that they were both alive, but also because his legs were suddenly too tired to actually be legs. Jack stood there for a moment, completely supporting Bucky, before he asked, “Can you stand? You’re heavier than you look” and Bucky had to use his own two feet again. He would’ve gotten around to that eventually, of course. People around them were watching.

“I am so glad to see you,” Bucky finally got out, reaching up and unfastening his helmet, the strap of which had been rubbing uncomfortably against his jaw and prodding the bruise that had probably already formed.

“Likewise.” Jack looked unscathed, save for tiny scratches and cuts on his hands and face, which was a relief, and a miracle at that. He reached forward and ruffled Bucky's hair, but stopped, looking concerned, when the latter winced. "You alright there? You look a little off."

Bucky shrugged and felt his jaw carefully. Jack was acting unusually caring, and Bucky determined that he was either very tired or someone he knew had been taken in the battle. Maybe both. "I’m beat.”

“Agreed.” Jack reached up and carefully turned Bucky’s chin to the side. “What happened there?”

So there _was_ a bruise. “Don’t remember.” Bucky was a man of pride, after all. No need for Jack to know that he’d gotten beat up by an unarmed Nazi. He had something of a reputation to uphold. “Hey, do you know what a hydra is?”

“Nope.” Jack went along with the change in conversation, seeming to sense that Bucky wasn’t going to talk about his injuries. “Did you ask Lance?”

“He said something about a monster with lots of heads.”

“Of course he did.”

“Is there food anywhere?” Bucky tried again to change the subject, knowing that he needed to sit down.

"There is!" Jack slung an arm around his shoulders, and Bucky jumped. Not only because of the stinging in his upper arm, but because no one had ever done that to him in his life, and it genuinely surprised him. He'd always done it to Steve, to offer encouragement or to steady him after a fight, but Steve was shorter than him, and not the strongest guy around. If his shoulder hadn't been smarting enough to bring tears to his eyes, Bucky would have smiled. As it was, he didn't have time to react, because Jack snatched back his hand. "You're bleeding."

"Am I?" Bucky brushed at his arm with one hand and looked at the red staining his fingertips with a sort of detachment that he knew wasn't healthy. The scab must have rubbed off when he helped Lance walk. "I'll go get this cleaned up, then."

"Here, let me help." Jack spoke with the same carefully casual tone as he had been, and it put Bucky's mind on edge, even though a dull headache that had begun to develop in the front of his mind. Who had died?

However, he was much too tired to deal with anything Jack wasn't telling him. It would have to wait. "Thanks." Bucky found his footing and let Jack lead him to the mess area.

 

The next morning, they were roused at a time that seemed terribly early, but was just the same as it had been every other morning. The first thing that came to Bucky’s mind was that he was sore. He was more sore than he’d ever been in his life, and Jack had the nerve to _laugh_ when he sat up partway and then fell back onto his cot with a groan.

“Get up, old man.” Jack threw his pillow at him, and Bucky gave a heavy sigh before rolling over. His headache had faded to a dull pang that appeared whenever he turned his head too fast, and his ribs were sensitive, but it could’ve been a lot worse, he supposed. He could have a bullet through his gut.

Carefully, he sat up again and somehow got dressed without falling over, and it was all a mundane blur of food and walking until he found himself lined up in a field and listening to the roll call. It had all become a routine by now, and he was glad that it had picked up like nothing had happened. He was never one for routines, but this time around, it was kind of like an anchor.

Except that it wasn’t exactly the same. There were these terrible gaps of silence after some soldiers’ names, soldiers that hadn't been found and counted dead, and Bucky saw men wincing out of the corner of his eye when they heard that one of their friends hadn’t made it, that they had lived when a buddy of theirs hadn’t. Bucky’s name was one of the first, and it was painful to listen to the rest. He heard Jack account for himself, and Lance’s name was answered, but when they reached Ryan Rogers’s name, there was a quiet moment before everyone moved on. Everyone, it seemed, except for Bucky, who suddenly felt faint. Ryan couldn't be _dead_ just like that, he was going to marry Nancy who had just as much spunk as Steve and was waiting for Ryan to come home. Bucky had a terrible vision of Nancy opening the condolence letter from the army with shaking hands and tears in her eyes.

The soldier next to Bucky, his name Kincaid or something, nudged him, and Bucky realized that they were supposed to be moving. He stumbled forward and marched to the trucks, where they were loading up. He slid into a seat and just waited, oddly numb, for the truck to start moving. He had told Ryan that he had nothing to worry about, that he would get home, and instead Bucky was the one left alive. He wondered if Ryan had been one of the men torn apart by the grenade thrown at him. Could it be _his fault_? He hadn’t been paying attention, after all.

"Barnes?" Someone nudged his knee with theirs. Bucky blinked and glanced up at Jack for a moment before lowering his eyes and fixing his gaze on the ground again. "You okay?"

Another soldier patted him on the back lightly, and Bucky recognized that Thompson had sat down on his other side. He could practically hear his friends exchange looks, and felt himself shake his head and say, "Hi. I'm fine."

He would be, at least. Bucky took a breath, then another, and turned his mind away from Ryan and Nancy. Somehow, he found a smile and sat up straighter. He'd dealt with death before. This was something he could handle. "Any idea where we're headed?"

"No." John and Jack both said, shook their heads, and then glared at each other.

"Useless." Bucky sighed. "Both of you." Thompson made an indignant noise, and Jack slugged him on the shoulder, but Bucky just laughed in place of an apology. "I'll have to ask someone else," he said pointedly, and a man across from him looked up.

"Sorry, wasn't listening," one of them said in a heavy Brooklyn accent.

Bucky laughed again, mostly out of surprise at hearing the familiar tone of voice. "D'you know where we're going?" Bucky repeated.

"Not a clue!" the other replied cheerfully, then stuck out his hand. "I'm Joshua Lowell, though."

Bucky felt a bit better, having been bombarded by enthusiasm. "Bucky Barnes," he answered, shaking the offered hand with a smirk. "But you're still just as useless as them."

Lowell sighed. "I did my best."

On Jack’s other side, Kincaid snorted loudly, because that was apparently how he showed amusement, which set a few others off as well. Everyone else seemed a little on edge, and Bucky realized that they were all just as affected by the roll call as he had been.

Bucky found that he had almost a negative amount of energy, due to the news that morning and the interrupted sleep, so he managed to keep awake for at least ten minutes before he drifted off and fell sideways onto Jack's shoulder. It was a miracle, he noted later, considering how much the truck bounced as it drove.

Bucky was jarred into consciousness when the truck stopped, throwing him away from Jack's very muscled shoulder and into John's chest. "Wha--" he got out before Lowell dragged him to his feet. There was a lovely moment when he was so disoriented that he thought he was going to vomit, but it soon passed.

"We're here!" Lowell announced loudly enough for Bucky to wince.

"Nice to see you're alive, Sleeping Beauty." Jack pounded him on the back, and Bucky tipped forward. He would've fallen if someone hadn't grabbed the back of his coat and dragged him back upwards.

When he'd found his balance again, he managed, "You really think I'm pretty?" before John herded him out of the truck into cool afternoon air. Trying to clear his mind, he stopped walking.

"You are the prettiest princess," Lowell said sincerely as he passed Bucky to walk ahead with Thompson. When Jack laughed, Bucky wasn't sure whether to be offended or not.

 

"Can I ask you a personal question?"

"Shoot." Bucky didn't look up from his letter, even though Lance probably deserved his full attention. He finally had dry paper, and he was going to take advantage of that.

_You gotta update me on baseball happenings, Steve. It's very important to me that you give me a blow-by-blow description of the next game you go watch. Baseball is one of the finer points of life. Who's the best rookie this season? This is very important. Lives depend on this, ~~darling~~._

"Do all your letters go to Steve?" Lance asked, both very gently and unexpectedly.

Bucky actually stopped and looked up at his friend, unsure of how far this conversation was going to go. "Yes."

"Are you two brothers?" Lowell asked from the far side of Lance's cot. Hadn't he ever learned that eavesdropping was frowned upon?

The corner of Bucky's mouth curled into a bitter smirk, and he glanced back down at his paper in an attempt to hide his reaction at least a little bit. "Something like that." Or, Bucky was in love with Steve, and always had been. Some things were just never going to change. Why was he having this conversation? What point was Lance trying to make?

_Also, please tell me you didn't take in that stray cat that scratched up my shoe. It is the devil incarnate and I should have killed it when I had the chance. ~~You took it in, didn't you~~_

_We won our first battle (?), which was quite the experience. I got scraped up a bit, but I'm fine. This one soldier, Ryan Rogers, was shot. He was a friend of mine. If you ever run into a brunette named Nancy with freckles and she tries to punch you in the face, could you tell her that Ryan talked about her like she was the sun?_

“Hey, I understand,” Lowell contributed. “I have a friend who I grew up with, we even shared a house for a while. Is Steve like that?”

For a moment, Bucky’s mind was filled with pure red-hot angry thoughts about how everyone wanted to know all about Steve, and he didn’t want Steve to be any part of the war, but he forced himself to calm down because he’d been the most mysterious out of all of them. His friends deserved to know at least something about his life. Hell, Ryan Rogers had learned more about him in twenty minutes than Bucky had disclosed to anyone else in months. “Yeah, we’ve known each other since we were born. Had a little apartment in Brooklyn and all after his parents kicked the bucket.” He winced a little at his harsh word choice--Steve’s mother had been a nice lady, even with the sickness that left her bedridden and eventually killed her. She’d taken over as Bucky’s mother as much as she could, because his own mother had died when Bucky was six and he didn’t get any sort of affection from his own father, ever.

Steve loved her more than anything, often dropping everything to take care of her when she was having a rough day, with Bucky not far behind. After the funeral, when Steve was asleep, Bucky got really drunk and cried himself to sleep, which was something that he’d never told anyone, but Steve probably suspected due to the smell of whiskey in the apartment the next morning. There he was, thinking about Steve again.

“But he’s apparently forgotten me, and I don’t want to talk about him anymore,” he finished, his voice quiet.

Lance looked sad, which made Bucky sort of angry again, for some reason, but Lowell just held up his hands and spoke slowly. “You got it, man."

Bucky just stared at the paper in front of him and didn't respond.  

_Do you even remember me? Have you moved on by now? Are you even alive? You promised that you'd write weekly, Steve. It's been much, much longer than that. Can't help but feel pretty ignored over_

Bucky's handwriting had dissolved into angry scrawl, and he felt a calming hand on his arm. "Bucky," Lance said quietly, and Bucky froze. Lance was really more of a last-name kind of guy. "Leave the rest for tomorrow, okay?"

Bucky let his paper and pencil be pulled from his hands, then he let his head drop into them instead. "I slept all day already." He also didn't want to sleep at all. He wanted to talk to Steve, or Ryan, he wanted someone to tell him he was not forgotten, that there was a life at home that he could regain after the war. As soon as Lance had moved away, he stubbornly picked up the paper again, crossed out the last sentence, and scraped out a _With you till the end of the line_. His name afterwards was signed with angry corners and big letters, like a child's signature. "I'm not tired."

Lance stretched out on his cot. "Just do your best." As if on cue, Jack called out the two-minute warning to lights out.

Bucky stuffed the letter into an envelope, unlaced his boots, and kicked them off before sighing and lying down. Lance would be a good father, he thought dimly as he breathed slowly to calm his nerves. Maybe when he got home, Lance and his beautiful young wife could have a kid or two. He’d never seen a picture of Lance’s wife, but she sounded really nice, a darling Scottish redhead named Aileen who was apparently even smarter than Lance.

"Sleep well, Barnes," Lance said in a low tone as the lights switched off.

"You too." Bucky curled up tightly and tried to think of nothing. It didn't work. His mind simply couldn't forget how trusting Ryan's hand had been in his.

He was awake for what felt like hours, with a familiar knot in his stomach. He tossed and turned and felt overall like he'd really like to just fall asleep and forget. Maybe he could bribe someone into getting him some kind of alcohol.

At some point, Lance stirred next to him. "Barnes?" he mumbled. "Are you awake?"

"Yeah," Bucky answered, and tried to find a comfortable spot for his pillow, something that got increasingly harder every evening.

"I'm sorry for bringing up Steve earlier." Lance propped himself up on one elbow, and sounded genuine, bless him. If only Bucky’s problems began and ended with Steve these days.

Giving a short laugh that was meant to be dismissive but sounded choked instead, Bucky waved a hand noncommittally, even though in the dark it probably looked like an unhealthy sort of spasm. “It’s all good, Lance. Why are you up?”

“Thirsty. You?”

“Hadn’t fallen asleep yet,” Bucky admitted.

Lance nodded thoughtfully before digging out his canteen and taking a long drink. “Good luck,” he said once he was done.

Bucky nodded and turned over, eventually hearing Lance’s breathing even out once more. He needed all the luck he could get. Previously, he’d thought he had good luck naturally, thanks to his charm and (he had to admit) good looks. But recently, he’d realized that he’d just been kept alive for something else, something to balance out his relative good fortune. He hoped it wouldn’t be too disastrous, and that it wouldn’t affect Steve much.

Of course, at the rate that Steve was communicating with him, he wasn’t sure that his best friend would care if he just went MIA.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

Bucky found himself yet again in an all-too-familiar situation. It had become routine in the few months since Ryan's death, and Bucky really should've been used to it by now. He was waiting, with in tremors racing up and down his arms and legs, with a gun in his hands. Breathing slowly and forcing himself to be cool, because he'd done this countless times before.

All the battles were roughly the same, save for the rotating cast that was Bucky's regiment. Thompson had been taken out a few weeks back, thanks to three bullets straight in the chest, and Bucky remembered a small period of time after that when he couldn't sleep a wink at night, balled up on his cot and clutching at his stomach. He’d spent a day or so in the nurses’ tent for that, when he’d almost collapsed during drills. Jack, Lowell and Lance had stuck around, thankfully, but several other men in his regiment had gone MIA and Bucky really just wanted _to go home already_. It hurt too much, to be the friendly soldier who greeted new recruits and joked and wrote letters to someone who couldn't care less about him, which was the expectation that he had created for himself. But he kept it up.

 _Wars aren't won with whining_ , he remembered his father saying, back when Bucky had gotten pneumonia trying to find money to buy Steve food. It had been an especially nasty winter that year. Bucky had barely scraped enough together to pay the rent. Steve went hungry for a few nights, unfortunately, and Bucky had never quite forgiven his father. He still developed a cough, sometimes, after being out in the rain too long, that lasted for a few days at most, thanks to him trying to overcome the disease without medical help. Medicine was expensive, after all. Steve had been pretty angry. His dad, on the other hand, had been completely apathetic about the whole thing. It was memories like that that sort of made Bucky glad that his father was gone for good, and especially confused as to why Steve was ignoring him.

There was that awful second of silence that hung in the air and seemed deafening, and then the peaceful morning was ripped to shreds. Bucky aimed, fired, aimed, fired, until it was determined by whoever was in charge those days that he really was the most efficient sniper they had and was sent to climb some tall structure. They had probably named a building, but Bucky was always a little out of touch with everything during battle.

The street was ugly. Bucky had to step over bodies, some of which were still alive and asking for help. One man actually made eye contact with Bucky and requested water, with a hand pressed to a gushing head wound, even as he lost consciousness and his eyes rolled back. With an undignified choking sound, Bucky hurried around him and attempted to make his ears stop working. There wasn't any time for Bucky to help the man, as he was reminded when a bullet ricocheted off of his helmet. Of course, he recognized the man. He tried not to, but he remembered that the man’s name was Charles Potts, and he had nothing but his old dog at home. The dog would probably starve without Charles. Whoever the dog had been given to would eventually turn it out onto the street.

Gingerly, he scaled the side of a building. He used windowsills and flower boxes and uneven bricking for footholds, and really considered it a miracle overall that he wasn't shot. The flower boxes were all wilted and dead, and sometimes broke under his boots with a grumble of soil and clay, but were ubiquitous and made his ascent much easier.

Eventually, he dragged himself up onto the rooftop and pulled his gun off his back. It was a whole new level up on top, not as loud and definitely a lot less stressful, if he didn't watch his men.

Bucky's strategy had shifted from kill shots to only wounding the other army. The objective wasn't to kill people, after all, it was to win the war. He reasoned that it was better to put the enemy in costly medical care than to end their lives. That mindset didn't really blot out the screams, though.

There was a small click and a scraping noise, one that didn't originate from his rifle. Bucky glanced around and saw what a yell from below confirmed. "Grenade!"

Almost without thought, Bucky threw himself off the edge of the roof. The wrong side, the one closer to the enemy. That wasn't his main problem, however, considering that he was probably about to become much flatter. He scrambled for a grip on the side of the building, tearing up his fingernails but snagging himself on a windowsill. The windowsill, of course, promptly fell to pieces, but it slowed his fall enough that he landed on his back with a minimal amount of pain. Sincerely hoping that no one had seen, he checked himself first for broken bones. None.

As he was trying to get back into a sitting position, he suddenly felt the hot barrel of a pistol pressed to his forehead. " _Heil_ Hydra," someone hissed. Bucky swiped the gun away from his face as it fired and rolled to the side, getting to his feet quickly and retrieving his rifle. It was an easy shot, even if it did make Bucky sick to the stomach. _Self defense_ , he reassured himself. His hands trembled anyway.

After hurrying back to his side of the fight, Bucky reloaded his gun and turned, firing again and again until his shoulder felt like it was going to fall off and his ears couldn’t hear a thing. But he’d heard the Hydra thing again, and that was the one thing he kept hearing over and over in his head, played on a loop like a scratched record. _What the hell was Hydra?_

Somehow, Nazis were related to a multi-headed mythological Greek monster. Bucky was determined to figure out how, but at the moment he needed to focus on keeping himself alive.

This skirmish took longer than normal, but at the end, Bucky found that the Nazis were again the ones retreating, which lightened his mood somewhat. Not enough that he could forget about Hydra for a while and go hang out with Jack and Lance and Joshua like nothing was wrong, but enough that he would probably be able to fall asleep for at least a few hours that night.

 

Eventually, Bucky made his way back to camp and all but collapsed onto a cot. It wasn’t that he was tired, exactly--he was in very good shape at this point and didn’t get as drained as he used to--he was more numb than tired. This happened too, sometimes, after battles, he’d just lose all feeling towards anyone or anything and go straight to bed. Not even able to untie his boots properly, Bucky spent the better part of fifteen minutes trying to breathe directly into a pillow, which was harder than he expected. After he began to feel like he was suffocating, Bucky rolled onto his back and considered getting food. He also needed to make sure that both Jack and Lance were alright. Fortunately, he didn’t have to actually put in effort.

“Hey, Barnes,” some familiar voice said from somewhere to his right. Bucky didn’t even turn his head, just looked at Jack from the corner of his eye before turning his gaze back to the roof of their tent. “You’re in a mood,” Jack commented after a small silence. “Did anything happen in particular?”

It seemed like it would take too much energy to nod or shake his head, so Bucky just gave a noncommittal noise and glanced back at Jack. After a moment, he said, “I feel strange.”

“Stranger than you look?” his friend immediately shot back in exaggerated disbelief, settling on the cot next to him. Bucky was forced to shift onto his side in order to maintain eye contact, but when he gave no other reaction, Jack became sincere. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t feel like ever moving again.”

Jack looked sympathetic. Somehow, the expression on his face was so Steve-like that Bucky had to avert his eyes and think not-Steve thoughts. He had enough to deal with without sudden memories from Brooklyn. “Have you eaten?”

“Yeah. Have you?” It was a reflex. He hadn’t meant to lie, but it was a knee-jerk reaction from years of putting others (Steve) first. Too late to correct himself now, because Jack would get suspicious.

"Sure have." Jack ruffled Bucky’s hair. “You going to write a letter?”

Bucky knew that he should, but all of his letters were basically the same at this point. A brief summary of the last few days, followed by rapid-fire (and unanswered) questions about home, a sentence (or three) about how he didn’t think that Steve would be the one to forget about him. And then his “With you till the end of the line, Bucky.” Though he’d begun leaving off his signature and just scrawling a big letter B at the bottom of the page. Steve obviously didn’t mind otherwise, and Bucky was sick of it. Plus, his fingers were bloody from clawing up the side of that building, and writing with a pen seemed undesirable at the moment. So he said, stoutly, “No,” before turning over and attempting to empty his mind. Jack was undoubtedly worried by now, but Bucky found himself really not caring.

    

The next morning, Bucky had to force himself out of bed. He was still in his uniform from the previous day, which consequently felt sticky and disgusting, so he just hit the showers and rebuffed any attempts at conversation by Lance and Jack. There wasn’t much to talk about, anyway--nothing that was cheerful at all. A few men had died, men that Bucky had laughed with and joked with and had been worth so much more and had been so much better than Bucky could have hoped to be. Charles’s dog was starving on the streets of Newark, New Jersey. Bucky was tired.

For some reason, Lowell was determined to get his mind off of all that. So determined, apparently, that he just slapped a comic book down next to Bucky’s untouched breakfast plate. A _comic book_ , of all things. The cover was colorful. Red, white, blue, yellow, colors so vibrant they hurt Bucky’s eyes a little bit. The top declared **CAPTAIN AMERICA** in bold letters, over the figure of a very muscled man in a spangled outfit. “What,” was all Bucky could say.

“Palmer’s sister sent it to him.” Lowell shrugged. Jack and Lance nodded confirmation.

Bucky picked up the comic and flipped through it with disinterest. “ _What_ ,” he repeated intelligently.

“It’s a comic,” Jack explained sarcastically. “You read it.”

The book featured a rather huge man named Captain America, and his uniform was obviously solely created to be patriotic. He wielded a shield, striped red and white with three stars on the blue stripe at the top. The shield was apparently his only weapon, and he relied heavily on his fists and convenient genius mind. “Captain America, huh?” Bucky asked incredulously, turning a page and seeing the Captain punch Hitler in the jaw. A large _POW!_ covered most of the picture, but of course Captain America’s strong jawline was still visible.

“He’s apparently a real guy, too,” Jack added through a mouthful of breakfast. At Bucky’s raised eyebrow, he continued. “He’s on tour around America to get donations and things for the army. Emily said he’s very handsome--not as handsome as you, don’t worry. She went to see one of his shows and says he punched Hitler. He’ll be in Europe at some point, probably.”

“He sounds really wonderful.” Bucky handed the comic book back to Jack, unable to keep the slight bitterness out of his voice. “Why isn’t he over here, actually being useful?”

“He’s _helping_ ,” Jack admonished, nudging Bucky’s plate closer to him with his elbow. “Eat up.”

Bucky made a face and then took a bite. “Whatever you say.” Though, secretly, he was a little cheered up. Maybe it was good to have a real superhero on their side, because they needed all the help they could get. Perhaps he would write that letter home after all, and see if Steve had gotten around to seeing any of the shows. Seemed up his alley.

Jack seemed to notice the shift in Bucky’s attitude, and relaxed noticeably. “We should see one of his shows if he’s ever in town.”

Bucky actually snickered. If he lived long enough for the Captain to be in town. “Sure.”

“It’s bound to happen sometime,” Lance reasoned.

“Does he give autographs? I  _cannot wait_.” Bucky actually finished his plate for the first time in months, then tried to ignore the triumphant glance that Lance and Jack shared. Everything seemed more manageable with a full stomach, somehow.

“Barnes, you’re a moron.” Jack rolled his eyes, and then they all had to start the day’s drills.

 

His letter home was a little less angry that time around, partially due to the fact that Lowell’s brother had supplied them all with the latest everyday news from home. Mainly, baseball happenings. Additionally, it was confirmed that Jack’s sister rather fancied Bucky, as she’d (confidentially) disclosed in one of her letters. When Jack had read this, he’d practically howled for the seventh time in the last three months, “She’s only thirteen years old!” Lance had laughed for almost a minute straight.

“You’ve got some skill. She’s never even met you,” Lowell pointed out as he passed by, grinning when he saw the state that Lance was in. 

“Who can blame her, really?” Bucky asked innocently, causing Jack to pick up his boot and smack him upside the head, but he knew that it was all in good fun. They took comic relief where they could get it.

_So, this Captain America fellow, huh? Have you seen any of his shows? Jack said he came to Brooklyn, so I assumed you’d show up for that. It seems like your kind of show. Did he actually punch Hitler in the face? Did you bring a pretty girl along with you?_

The last question he read in his head with a bitter tone several times, debating whether or not he should leave it there. He didn’t want to know if Steve had a girl. But Steve also had been making a habit of not answering, so what did Bucky have to worry about?

“Lights out in ten minutes,” someone announced.

Lowell had sat himself down on Jack’s cot and was animatedly recounting a wildly embellished story. Bucky was too tired to keep up with it, but judging by Lance’s still-present grin, it was funny. 

_For the record, I’d rather be hearing about you than the good Captain. You’re a better man than anyone I’ve ever met, Rogers, and I only wish I could hear something from you. Honestly. Letters don’t write themselves. Lance and Jack worry about me, I think. They think I’m writing to no one. Prove them wrong, maybe? I’d greatly appreciate the opportunity to salvage my honor._

_With you till the end of the line, B_

It had been awhile since he’d bothered with the signature. Bucky found that it felt rather nice.

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

Starting with the second “ _Heil_ Hydra!” that Bucky had heard, his dreams had gotten progressively stranger. Sometimes, he didn’t fall asleep long enough to _have_ dreams, but when he did, they were disconcerting, to say the least. Occasionally, they woke him up, drenched in sweat, but usually, he slept through the night. The ones that woke him up were usually bloody dreams about things that he’d seen in battle, and people he’d shot, though the most recurring one was the one with Bucky accidentally shooting Steve. It wasn’t possible, he was halfway across the world, but Bucky still woke up sometimes with Steve's shocked-hurt-lifeless face imprinted on his memory.

Then, on one of the nights when Bucky had jolted awake with a scream stuck in his throat and the lingering feeling of his finger squeezing a trigger, he knew that he needed some kind of answer. His nightmares had taken a turn for the worse recently, since Lowell’s leg had almost been blown to smithereens two weeks back--he still couldn’t put too much weight on it and almost dragged it behind him--and if Bucky didn’t find out what Hydra was soon, he might explode. At first light, Bucky slipped away from his friends and went to find Colonel Phillips. He figured that if anyone would know what Hydra was, it would be the Colonel. Plus, they had the day off today, so this was the most opportune time to get an answer and have time to do so. He could catch up to Jack later.

Bucky stood at the opening flap of the Colonel’s tent, back straighter than he was himself, and tried not to appear as exhausted as he really was, which was harder than he’d previously thought it would be. “Sir,” he tried, once he was sure that his voice would be steady.

The Colonel turned, eyebrows furrowed. He was generally a pretty unsatisfied person, Bucky had learned. “Yes, soldier?”

 _Soldier_. Bucky still disliked the label. “I have a question.”

Showing a hint of exasperation, the Colonel let out a breath and said incredulously, “It isn’t something that you could ask your old man?”

“He’s dead, sir,” Bucky retorted before he could help himself.

Colonel Phillips didn’t offer condolences. That hadn’t been expected, anyway. “Spit it out, then.”

“What’s Hydra?”

Instantly, the Colonel’s demeanor changed. He glared at Bucky, though maybe every expression he made was a glare by accident, then strode forward and motioned him inside his tent. Confused, Bucky stepped in, and the Colonel threw the tent flap closed behind him, before stepping so close to Bucky that the latter could smell tobacco on his breath. “How did you hear about that?” he asked in a low growl.

Bucky was thoroughly nervous now. “Uh, I’ve heard it out in action once or twice?”

“Once or twice? Where?”

“I don’t remember…” Officially too tired to be having this conversation, Bucky inched backwards, slowly enough so that it didn’t seem like he was intimidated, only trying to get some space in between them. “Is it something that I should worry about?”

“It’s something that we should all worry about,” the Colonel muttered. “But it’s classified. We’re not sure that it’s that big of a threat yet, so keep this to yourself.”

“Excuse me, but if we should be worrying about it, shouldn’t we know what it is?” was what came out of Bucky’s mouth instead of a respectful response. He really needed to stop talking around authority figures.

“Get out,” the Colonel snarled, and Bucky hurried from the tent, glancing backwards over his shoulder with an expression of confusion. His question hadn’t been answered at all, and Bucky was growing increasingly anxious about this whole Hydra thing. Was it actually a big problem or not? Either way, he could only hope that the Colonel would forget who he was before it came to be a big deal. It wasn't a good idea to stand out on the front line.

Consequently, he ran straight into someone, who stood their ground, and Bucky bounced off of them. “You want to try watching where you’re going?” the person asked, though they sounded a little bit amused.

“Sorry,” Bucky mumbled, trying to sidestep, and turned his vision frontside. Whoever it was grabbed his arm, not aggressively at all, just to get his attention, and Bucky’s gaze flickered upward to see that it was Lance. “Oh. Hey.”

“Are you in trouble?” Lance’s smile was teasing, but his eyes didn’t reflect it.

“I need a haircut, it seems,” Bucky announced suddenly, a blatant cover-up but not a total lie, which startled a laugh out of his friend. “Can we go do that?”

“We sure can. Let’s go get Jack, he’s looking a little shaggy too.” Lance led the way back to their barrack, hardly limping on his burned leg anymore and thankfully not inquiring any further about the incident. “There’s a museum in town, and Aileen sent some money to go to the movies.”

“Aileen is wonderful,” Bucky said unashamedly, and Lance just nodded agreement.

 

Jack complained the entire way to the barber’s, without any malice at all, saying things about how he liked his hair better _this_ way and he didn’t want to cut it until he absolutely had to, and he didn’t shut up until Lance snapped that they could go get ice cream or something afterwards. This happened because first, Jack only took Lance seriously if he sounded genuinely angry, and second, they were all hungry and Lance had guessed right when he thought it a worthwhile bribe.

They were in some smallish French town, in the northern part of France. Bucky wasn’t even sure if they had ice cream in France, but he kept that to himself so that he wouldn’t be blamed if the bribe blew up in Lance’s face.

Lance claimed to speak French--of course he spoke French, he was Lance--and Jack and Bucky hung back for the most part, not wanting to get accidentally roped into trying to communicate with a language barrier. They smiled at passerby occasionally, but mostly kept to themselves and followed Lance.

Bucky entered the barber shop last out of their trio and sat down in a chair that the man working there pointed out to him. He looked to Lance with thinly veiled panic when the guy tapped on Bucky’s elbow, clearly pointing out the uniform. The guy wasn’t just going to buzz his hair, was he?

 _He was_. Bucky stared at Lance in horror, silently pleading him to say something before it was too late, but Lance was talking to Jack and not looking his way. He heard, rather than saw, the razor turn on, and really started to wish that he’d learned some French in school. “Lance,” he whispered desperately. Lance finally glanced over, at the exact moment Bucky felt the razor touch the base of his skull.

And Lance did absolutely nothing but smile blandly and turn back to Jack. Bucky sputtered, then had to sit there and endure all of his hair being shaved off because Jack and Lance were the worst friends that Bucky had ever had. Steve would never have allowed this to happen.

On second thought, Steve would have burst out laughing and allowed it to happen anyway. The last time Bucky had shaved his head was because his dad was convinced that Bucky looked and acted like a hooligan. Steve was a hooligan, Bucky was a hooligan, anyone Bucky’s age was a hooligan according to the late Mr. Barnes. Steve told Bucky every day that he looked like a plucked chicken, and Bucky couldn’t even punch him. He’d never live with himself if he hurt Steve, even on accident.

When the barber was done, he held his hand out like he expected money, and Bucky reluctantly handed him what Lance had counted out earlier to pay. He apprehensively ran his hand over the short fuzzy hair left on his scalp and walked back to Lance and Jack with a look of murder on his face. He already knew subconsciously that he looked silly, and didn’t even dare look in the mirror.

Jack took one look and started laughing, but Lance tried to keep some kind of innocent expression on his face.

“I need new friends,” Bucky grouched, and hurt must have shown on his face, because Jack immediately tried to suppress his giggles.

“It’s not that bad,” Lance consoled, though Bucky couldn’t tell if he was lying through his teeth or not, because Lance’s poker face was legend. “It’s different, but not bad.”

Jack wiped at his eyes, face red from laughter. He seemed to find the whole thing a lot less amusing when he remembered that it was his turn. In fact, his face turned remarkably pale when Lance nudged him forward. “Look, I’m not the one who got in trouble, here.”

“Take one for the team, Palmer,” Lance chided.

Jack took it even less stoically than Bucky had, gripping the arm of the chair and staring wide-eyed in Bucky’s direction. He looked just fine with his hair shaved off, probably much better than Bucky, and Lance just kept grinning because his hair was just short enough not to get noticed by anyone in charge for another few weeks.

“That was so traumatic,” Jack said fervently, once they were back outside.

Lance just looked pleased with himself.

 

After finally finding ice cream, Bucky located a movie theater. He wasn’t even sure how the movie that was playing was pronounced, but it looked rather dramatic, and was just the distraction he needed.

Lowell had had the same idea as them, apparently, because he limped up to them as they approached with a wide smile. “Nice hair,” he snorted, then led them into the theater. Bucky scowled and ran a hand through the fuzz left on his head.

A newsreel was running as they took their seats behind a really broad-shouldered blonde guy who was hunched over, apparently so that people behind him could see. Bucky settled in behind him.

A tall, very muscled man with a cowl covering half his face and a very patriotic costume ran onto the screen, and block letters named him as Captain America, which didn’t come as a surprise to anyone. The voice-over was in rapid, angry-sounding French, and hurt Bucky’s head a little, but he took a good look at the so-called superhero.

He had a strong jawline, almost as defined as the comics made him look, and his outfit was ridiculous. His voice was in English, calling for support for the war effort, while the angry French male voice-over translated. Bucky squinted a little when he heard his voice--the guy sounded a lot like Steve, from what could be heard, Bucky would have to write a letter making fun of him--but then leaned back in his seat when Jack looked at him curiously. Captain America punched Hitler in the jaw, some people cheered, and then the newsreel ended. Bucky’s eyes fell on the guy in front of him, and realized that it could actually be Captain America, sitting right in front of him.

Bucky grinned, but then stifled it and looked back up at the movie. Apparently the guy didn’t want to get recognized.

The movie turned out to be a romantic drama, and Bucky didn’t even know what was happening most of the time, so he lost interest, drifted off, and ended up asleep on Jack’s shoulder again. He woke up intermittently, once when the man’s mistress got shot, and then again when his best friend jumped into a river, and again when the man’s wife pulled out a gun. Bucky hovered in a state between confusion, incredulity, and exhaustion for the remainder of the film.

“Barnes,” someone whispered, and Bucky opened his eyes slowly, quickly sitting up when he saw that the movie was over. Captain America was gone already. Lance was rolling his eyes good-naturedly, apparently being the whisperer. “I see you enjoyed the film.”

Bucky started to apologize, to him and to Jack, but both of them waved him off.

 

Bucky arrived back at camp with a smile, a ridiculous haircut, and at least an hour more of sleep. It was a good feeling. He settled on his cot with dry paper and a pencil, swearing to himself that he was actually going to write a quality letter with no bitterness towards Steve at all. There was a lot to talk about, like how Captain America could have been Steve’s taller, stronger twin, and Bucky was back looking like a plucked chicken, and Steve’s art classes had to be starting soon, and Lance’s wife Aileen was a literal angel from heaven, and they actually had ice cream in France who knew. Lance started a new game of cards, and Lowell was so bad at it that he lost before Jack even got to play his turn.

“I heard that we’re headed into Italy,” Jack confided, and Bucky threw that into his writing too.

He got halfway through his letter before he was reminded that nobody at home in Brooklyn would mourn him.

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

They were, in fact, headed into Azzano, Italy, as was revealed two weeks and one battle later. It had been learned that some kind of force was headed their way, and the 107th was expected to ward them off with a couple of other infantries in the area. Lowell had lost even more use of his leg, and had been sent home, but Bucky was just glad he wasn’t dead. The casualties had left the 107th at around two hundred men, which was more than enough to take care of a small problem fifty miles away.

Bucky threw his belongings that had survived so far into his trunk and saw them loaded onto a truck. He yawned, but found a small smile to keep his friends not worried about him. His hair was starting to grow back in, and it was long enough to keep him from looking like a shaved poodle.

Jack was full of energy, as usual, and enthusiastically pulled Bucky along the gravel path that was more mud than rock. He didn't actually pull Bucky, he looped back and walked progressively faster to speed up his friend's pace, like an overexcited dog. “Never thought I’d go to Italy!”

Bucky almost fell over when his toe caught on a rock, but he caught himself and casually looked around to make sure that no one had seen. “I don’t think any of us did.”

They sat down in the mess tent, next to Lance and Kincaid, and Bucky realized that letters were being handed out again. He’d gone more than a year and a half without a letter, so he kept his head down and picked at his food while Lance got another letter from Aileen, and Kincaid received one that Bucky didn’t care enough to ask about, and even Jack got to rip open a letter from his sister Emily. Jack informed Bucky that Captain America was coming to see their camp in three weeks, but didn't push it when Bucky didn't respond at all.

If Captain America wasn’t actually fighting, what was the point of paying him for all these shows, anyway? He was making light of the pain that every man in the war experienced. Was Captain America watching men die around him every day? Was  _he_  ever going to be sent home in a box?

“Aileen is working on planes,” Lance commented aloud, which was really something, wasn’t it. Maybe Lance should just head home and congratulate his cute wife himself.

Actually, Bucky was considering getting up and leaving, but then someone tapped his shoulder. He glanced up in disbelief, up into the kind eyes of a nurse, who appeared to be offering him an envelope. “Sergeant Barnes?”

He nodded and took the envelope, and managed a “Thank you,” before the nurse hurried off with her stack of letters.

Bucky didn’t let himself think that it was from Steve. He turned it over with trembling fingers, covering up the return address. His friends were silent, waiting for a reaction from him. All Bucky could see was many, many stickers and stamps, which implied that the letter had gotten lost several times. “I’m gonna…” he mumbled, then stood up and left without another word of explanation, his heart pounding. Nobody stopped him, though he wasn’t sure where he was going, anyway.

When he’d stopped underneath the shade of a tree--all of the tents were being taken down anyway--he finally looked at the front of the envelope. Steve’s uniform yet swoopy handwriting was totally recognizable, and Bucky could hardly get the envelope open without ripping it in half. Steve’s letter had just got lost in the mail, everything was fine.

He smoothed the paper out. Handwriting only covered about a fourth of the page, but Bucky wasn’t about to complain, and grinned like an idiot.

_Hey, Buck! I wrote as soon as I got the chance. You know how I submitted another application the night before you left? It worked! I met a really great man named Doctor Erskine. He let me in as a test, not sure how it’s going to work out._

Bucky’s smile slipped. Steve enlisted.

_Anyway, it’s been a few days since training started, and there’s this girl here, Miss Peggy Carter. I don’t really know how to talk to her without getting punched in the face, but there are other things to worry about. I can’t believe I’m finally here! I’ll write next week, and I’m still expecting a letter from you._

_Till the end of the line, Steve_

Bucky realized that he could hardly breathe. There was a distinct weight on his chest that he couldn’t shake. Steve had been in the army the whole time. He’d been in combat, presumably, and that meant that Steve hadn’t forgotten him and unintentionally not written, that meant that Steve was--

He breathed in raggedly, though it was getting more difficult by the second, and stared down at Steve’s achingly familiar signature until the letters blurred in front of his eyes and he couldn’t read them anymore. How could he have been so nearsighted? Steve wouldn’t have _forgotten_ him. 

Heavy air pressed down around him and froze him in place. Bucky could only stand there, rigid, not able to look up when he heard footsteps approaching. “Barnes,” whoever it was said urgently, not for the first time. It was Lance, his mind finally recognized. “I need you to look up. Can you do that for me?”

Bucky tore his gaze from the letter and stared straight ahead, more or less into Lance’s eyes. His shoulders were shaking, and something told him that he wasn’t really breathing.

“Barnes, take a deep breath, okay?” Lance inhaled in an exaggerated way, and Bucky did his best to follow, though his lungs felt like they were full of rocks. Lance followed a pattern of breathing that worked well enough, and within a few minutes, Bucky’s breathing was more or less back to normal.

“I’m going to take you to the medical truck,” Lance said slowly, and offered Bucky an arm. Bucky ignored this, and shook his head.

“I’m good,” Bucky insisted, though he felt exhausted. The drive to Italy was going to take several hours, anyway, and that was all he needed to recover. He could probably take a nap for at least half an hour. "Please don't take me to medical."

“You’re _not_ good.” Lance folded up Steve’s letter, which was almost ripped in half from Bucky's clenched hands, and tucked it into one of the pockets of Bucky’s coat. “Come on.”

“Steve’s gone,” Bucky blurted, and saying it made it all sound even worse, more real, and seemed to take away any possibility of this all being a huge mistake. He couldn’t really imagine a world without Steve, could hardly think of a Brooklyn without Steve running around starting fights that Bucky had to finish.

Lance’s face fell, and Bucky steeled himself, refusing to lose control again. “It happened a really long time ago. Nobody bothered to tell me,” he continued as nonchalantly as possible.

Who had gotten the letter of confirmation? It was probably sitting in the mailbox outside their apartment, along with all of the letters Bucky had sent over the course of the year and a half that he’d been gone. Maybe someone else had moved in already. “I’ve been writing letters to no one, I’m such an _idiot_. I should have figured something was wrong!”

“Barnes, don’t jump to conclusions,” Lance tried, but Bucky cut him off impatiently.

“It’s not a jump at all! Last word I hear from the skinniest, sickliest guy around is about him joining the army? You don’t have to read between the lines to know what happened there!”

“There are a number of things that could have happened.”

“Yeah, like what,” Bucky muttered, then shoved his hand into his pocket and crumpled up the letter. “I’ll see you later. We’re lining up.”

Lance just stood there while Bucky marched off to join the others.

The drive was even longer than Bucky expected it to be, but he couldn’t even get close to falling asleep. He was sitting on the end of the truck’s bench, and he could see the road racing by beneath them. It was all dirt, and dust kept kicking up from the trucks in front of them.

Next to him, Jack was sneezing continually, and it would have been hilarious at any other time. Kincaid was snickering into his hand, but the sound just aggravated Bucky’s ears.

“Will there be time for pizza?” Kincaid suddenly asked from his seat across from Bucky. Bucky realized that he hadn't said a word until then. “This will all be a waste of time if we don’t stop for pizza.”

“Pizza is originally from China,” Lance contributed, like it was common knowledge.

"Who cares?" Jack rolled his eyes, then sneezed again, Steve-like. Steve was the most stubborn when he had a cold, when it was even harder for him to breathe than before. "Am I right, Barnes?"

There was a noticeable silence, like the others were unsure as to whether Bucky was going to respond.

Bucky straightened his back and turned his gaze away from the road, figuring that he might as well keep it together for the sake of his friends. He forcefully pushed any thoughts of Steve out of his head and refused to let them come back. There was a time and a place. “Jack, don’t mock the sacred history.”

Jack guffawed, which made him sneeze again. “Hello to you too, Barnes.”

"Hi, Palmer. Miss me?" Bucky batted his eyelashes.

"Italy seems sort of boring, from what I've seen," Lance contributed.

"Get off your high horse. You haven't seen any of it yet," Kincaid pointed out. Lance laughed aloud.

After another sneeze, Jack said, "He's not on a horse, we're in a Jeep."

Kincaid smiled thinly, and looked like he was going to answer rudely, probably with some sort of insult made up on the spot.

Then the truck was launched sideways.

Bucky saw Kincaid flying towards him, and then the air was knocked out of his lungs when the truck hit the ground on its side. There had probably been the sound of an explosion, but Bucky couldn’t hear anything now. “Kincaid,” he tried to say, but he couldn’t hear himself say the words. His mouth moved, definitely. “Kincaid, get off of me.”

Kincaid didn’t move. Bucky shoved him off, and realized that there were two bullet wounds in his friend's back, mirrored by two holes in the side of the truck that was now overhead. Kincaid was definitely dead.

There was a metallic taste in Bucky's mouth. He should probably have been moving, but he froze up. Kincaid was gone, and Bucky didn't even remember his first name or where he was from. Who would open the letter in the inside pocket of his coat?

Next to Bucky, Lance was pulling Jack to his feet, moving towards the exit. Men were already running past, stepping on Bucky as they went, and Bucky stood up with some difficulty. His hearing was beginning to come back, and he heard faint gunshots and yelling. Jack got to his feet.

Before a plan could be made, Bucky was being dragged backwards by his arm.

His gun was on his belt, something in his brain told him as he looked up at the person pulling him and found a Nazi, with cold eyes and a small sneer. His gun was ripped away from him and tossed aside.

Bucky was struck with sudden clarity. This was the force that they had been sent to stop. They’d been ambushed. Also, Bucky was definitely about to die.

He threw a look over his shoulder, and saw Lance shouting, pulling out his gun and weaving through what was steadily becoming a brawl, the epitome of grace. He would maybe make it out alive, because he was Lance, but Bucky didn’t see Jack leave the truck. Bucky turned back to the problem at hand, which was that he was still being pulled along to who knew where, and kicked the Nazi right in the shin.

As if he was somehow surprised, the soldier stumbled, looking enraged, and Bucky put up his fists to block his face on reflex. He never got to land what would have been a very satisfying hit, because something collided with the back of his head.

Two against one wasn't fair at all, and Bucky tried to duck sideways. His head ached, and it turned into more of a stumble, but he managed to get some distance between them again.

A tank burst into the clearing and fired a blast, taking out one, then two more of the Nazi's trucks. Bucky didn't recognize the marking of the tank, black save for a circular white logo of a skull atop several curled tentacles, but he whooped along with a couple others as the Nazis around them retreated, bolting back to their trucks to set up some kind of defense. However, the tank was soon joined by two others, and the Nazi defenses were no match for that gunpower.

But when the Nazis were taken care of, the tank turned and fired a blast directly into the Allies.

Panic erupted again as soldiers in black uniforms and helmets streamed out of the forest from behind the tanks. Bucky was too dizzy to make an effective retreat, and saw one of the enemies run directly for him. He put up as good of a fight as he could, but was overpowered by two of them and found himself being marched at gunpoint back towards the trees, towards this group's trucks instead of the Nazis'.

He was sat down in the truck between two men who he'd only seen and never talked to. There wasn't quite enough room, so Bucky had to hunch his shoulders to fit comfortably, and was facing out the back of the truck, the door left open for the moment with three enemies blocking the way.

Over their heads, through the confusing mess of men still running about in a frenzy, and a split second before the doors closed, Bucky saw Lance being forced down to his knees with a gun pressed to his head.

The back doors of the truck were slammed shut, but Bucky’s hearing had recovered enough to pick out that gunshot among the rest of them.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Tumblr as superstarfinn, come say hi!


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